With 20 electoral votes, Pennsylvania has not gone GOP red since President George H.W. Bush carried the state 1988. In fact, the state GOP chairman who oversaw that victory, Earl Baker, was in attendance Monday.

But with a recent Quinnipiac University showing Trump either leading or tied Democrat Hillary Clinton in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, GOP activists were feeling feisty.

"Secretary Clinton has so much baggage that the luggage industry could name a line of suitcases after her," U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, R-10th District, one of Trump's most vocal Pennsylvania supporters, said. "She's not trusted - virtually at all."

Addressing the crowd, state Republican Chairman Rob Gleason said Trump had "created a movement," and that it would be up to state party members "to secure him a victory this fall."

But Trump got only an elliptical mention from Ryan, who reluctantly endorsed Trump earlier this year and who has been publicly critical of him.

Ryan, instead, spent most of his remarks talking about the House GOP's legislative agenda and efforts by Congressional Republicans to advance a program it believes offers a constructive alternative to the Democrats.

"We see a country that is not heading in the right direction. We see a country where our fellow citizens, seven out of 10 of them, think this country is heading in the wrong direction," Ryan said. "We know it is going in the wrong direction. And so the questions in these kinds of moments and these kinds of times are 'What are you going to do about it?'"

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., waves the Steelers' Terrible Towel as he addressed Pennsylvania Republicans at their first breakfast of this week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland (PennLive photo by John L. Micek)

Ryan sketched out a four-pronged program that included his own well-publicized efforts to fight poverty, noting that "the welfare system has become a work replacement system, not a work encouragement system."

He punched up national security issues, highlighting an increased role for America in a world that he said "is on fire." He also hit on such familiar GOP themes as tax reform and reducing the size of government bureaucracy.

"This is a binary choice -- it is Trump or Clinton," he said. "It is a choice. We've shown we've got the guts. We've put our cards on the table."

And that was all Ryan had to say about his own party's standard-bearer.

But he had plenty more to say about Trump's new runningmate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, with whom Ryan once served in the Congress.

"Mike Pence is a man out of the conservative movement - a man who knows his principles, who has the courage of his convictions," Ryan said, describing Pence as a "Reagan-like happy warrior."'